Volunteers bring 'Liberty!' to life at Sycamore Shoals

For the 33rd year, more than 100 volunteers will flood the stage of the Fort Watauga Amphitheater, bringing to life the people who fostered freedom in America and the stories that made them legend.

“Liberty,” the official outdoor drama of the State of Tennessee, will open July 14 for a three-weekend run — with performances at 7:30 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays — at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area in Elizabethton. The stories told on stage include the 1772 formation of the Watauga Association, the first free and independent government on the American continent, and the Transylvania Purchase of 1775, the largest private real estate transaction in American history that secured a monstrous chunk of what is now Kentucky and Tennessee for settlement. Also brought to life is the Battle of King’s Mountain. The American Revolution was struggling and freedom was hanging in the balance when the people of what is now Southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina and Northeast Tennessee stepped forward, banding together to form a volunteer citizen army that struck a lightning blow at the Battle of King’s Mountain in October of 1780. The victory they won — crushing the western flank of the British Army, then the most powerful fighting force in the world — is generally considered the turning point of the American Revolution.Read the expanded version of this report in the print edition or the enhanced electronic version of the Kingsport Times-News.